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Chiduwa pressed Mupururi for clarity on Zimbabwe’s GDP, emphasising its importance in understanding revenue targets.
LAWMAKERS were left disappointed with officials from the Finance ministry after they failed to provide statistics about the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
GDP is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. It is often used to measure the economic health of a country or region.
Finance ministry acting chief director Bernard Mupururi struggled to give answers to the Clemence Chiduwa-led budget and finance committee.
Chiduwa pressed Mupururi for clarity on Zimbabwe’s GDP, emphasising its importance in understanding revenue targets.
“I want to find out what is the GDP of Zimbabwe. The degree to which the government is able to collect revenue is dependent on our understanding of GDP,” Chiduwa said.
“For us to understand the figures, I know the Ministry of Finance for it to collect revenue is a certain percentage of GDP, so this is why I asked about the GDP of Zimbabwe and we need those answers
“You can see from the team (from the Finance ministry) that they are not answering, so how do we move forward? Do we need a memo so that we can get some answers on GDP and we expect seriousness from the ministry?”
Mbizo legislator Cobarn Madzivanyika expressed disappointment at the ministry’s lack of preparedness.
“It is unfortunate that the ministry is failing to give us the answers in the absence of the statistics it becomes difficult for us to know,” he said.
However, Mupururi seemed evasive and later provided some figures.
“In terms of GDP, do you want 2024 or 2023? (Anyway), I will give you the figures. For 2024, our GDP is ZiG96,9 trillion and we need to apply the exchange rate to get the US dollar value,” he said.
Chiduwa reiterated the need for seriousness from the ministry suggesting a memo might be necessary to obtain the required information.